![]() In 2013, Toon hit two life milestones: he started college, at the University of Phoenix, and he got married to Ahjanae (see the photo above), who he’d fallen in love with just before boot camp and was now the mother of his only son. Most of his intel work was interrogation training, but as a sergeant he was always busy: “I was kinda NCO of everything.” He didn’t talk about it on his next deployment, which was to Korea, on a base close to the North Korean border that ran constant “readiness exercises” simulating an invasion from the North. and to Fort Gordon, the heart of Army intelligence, in 2012. “It felt like what we were doing was kinda counterproductive.” He didn’t talk much about that feeling when he went back to the U.S. It wasn’t that he hated the country: “I loved the Afghan people!” But it didn’t take long to feel that there was no progress being made. “You become extremely numb, just going through the motions.” But still, “before and during every mission, there was kind of a gut-wrenching feeling.” Toon remembers “my first IED,” as they drove through some arduous terrain: “the vehicle right in front of me lifted from the impact.” It was easiest not to let oneself feel, he told me. His first deployment was to Afghanistan, which Toon called “a constant reminder, every minute, that your life was in jeopardy.” His convoys endured mortar fire and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on a regular basis. When the recruiters at his Virginia high school came by, he listened and signed on the dotted line in 2009.īut when he entered basic training, Toon found himself cringing during marksmanship training, where drill sergeants urged him to “neutralize, destroy, and defeat enemies both foreign and domestic.” That cognitive dissonance would escalate over the years. His uncle was quiet about his service in Vietnam, but “my grandma had Grandpa’s Bronze Star and Purple Heart” from his grandfather’s World War II service. Growing up in Maryland just south of Annapolis, all Toon heard about the military was that his uncle and grandfather had been in the Army. He sat down with me (over Zoom) the week his brigade commander at Fort Carson recommended to DACORB that his CO claim be approved. Twelve years later, Toon was typing the words “conscientious objector advocate” into a search engine-which is how he found the Center on Conscience and War. “I envisioned the military as the vanguard of freedom,” Toon wrote later, “and defenders of eternal grace and tranquility.” He read his enlistment contract carefully, and checked the “NO” box when asked if he was a conscientious objector. Toon knew his scores on the ASVAB test meant he could be an intelligence officer, part of the next generation of national defense. The new Obama administration was just getting started, and was promising to do right by the country of Afghanistan. he was about to graduate from high school in Virginia. Cade Fon Apollyon a.k.a.When Kyle Toon first thought about joining the Army, it felt like morning.Awfully Thorough Guide to Being British: Queuing.Aqua See Dogs Smoking universe (Movement).Anglo American Celtic and Viking Relations.You can squint but you can’t… Get a new angle at the LoL Categories The world as seen from a Norfolk bedside.Follow me on Twitter My Tweets Click Special Go on, you know you want to. Follow Library of Libraries on Wolfie in Sheep’s Clothing Smoking? Check. ![]()
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